MARK JACKSON
THEATER MAKING ARCHIVE
When we say we need to give ourselves space to deal with something, often we’re saying we need time. Space and time are flip sides of the same coin. In presenting her radical translation, ANTIGONICK, in the form of an art book, Anne Carson invites us to take time to reconsider Sophokles’ well known characters. Through ANTIGONICK’s distinctive text (handwritten in all capital letters and surrounded by ample empty space) and paintings (on transparent vellum pages inserted seemingly by chance), Carson makes the format of her book as decisive an aspect of the script as the words. She compels us not only to listen to this ancient story, but also to see it. As a poet, Carson understands that a perfectly coherent narrative order simply cannot contain the chaos of the human experience. Full of interruption, ambiguity, and collage, ANTIGONICK offers a challenge and an invitation. It’s no longer possible to coast on expectation. It’s no longer easy to separate heroes from villains. Carson carves out a bit of space and time for us to consider alternative possibilities... Working on ANTIGONICK led us to think a great deal about integrity. If we measure a person’s integrity by the extent to which she puts her body on the line for her ideals, then of course Antigone wins our sympathy. But isn’t Kreon also throwing himself on the fire by wearing the new title of king—a title he never wanted—and trying to create order in the wake of a chaotic war he never supported and which took his children? Aren’t the Antigones and Kreons of the world strikingly similar in their unyielding, narrow-minded courage? Most of us are more like Ismene, Haimon, Eurydike, or the Messenger—teetering somewhere between the poles of Antigone and Kreon’s extremes. Who is right? Or as Antigone herself asks, Who suffers more? It isn’t so easy to say.